The riders closed the road with brutal efficiency, and for one suspended heartbeat, my mind flung me backward through time to another ambush, another life, the memory of blood soaking into dirt while I'd screamed a name no one had come running for. I shoved the memory down hard enough to draw breath again.
"Rogues," the escort captain barked, though something in his voice already doubted the word even as he said it. "Formation protects the Princess!"
But Ryan had gone very still beside me, his eyes narrowed on the approaching riders with an assessment sharper than panic allowed for. "That's not rogue banditry. Look at their formation, that's a trained cavalry maneuver. Someone taught them to flank like that."
He was right. I watched the riders wheel with disciplined precision, closing e
